Around the Table: Asian Voices | 46.1

2023

When we first sent out the call for this issue, we invited Asians from all different backgrounds, ethnicities, and communities to come sit around the table with us and share their stories. The name “Around the Table” came from the realisation that for a lot of Asian cultures many moments, activities, and memories are done and made around the table. In this sense, I wanted this issue to feel similar to that. The dream for 46.1 has always been about supporting and uplifting the voices of Asian writers and artists, as well as to curate this issue as a platform to showcase the vastness that is the Asian collective. As the issue progressed, it became more than that.

“Around the Table” became a home to these incredibly wonderful, joyful, and vulnerable pieces that share individual experiences for the collective. From Paige Jung’s amazing artwork on the cover, whose original intention calls for action to and for our communities, to Steffi Tad-y’s painful, yet beautiful commissioned poems on collective and personal loss, and my featured interview with Lux Gow-Habrich, who speaks on the safety and healing that art has given them and the importance of sharing stories, not just for oneself, but for community as well. I want to thank all the creators in this issue for your vulnerability with your pieces, your delightful humour and joy, and for creating works that might help others just like you, feel seen and heard.

I would also like to thank the ones who submitted but were unfortunately rejected; we were just unable to accept due to issue capacity, but it’s been so wonderful to read your thoughtful works, and I just know the next home that finds your piece, will be a very lucky issue.

Lastly, thank you to my lovely team, Isabella and Shristi, as well as the Growing Room Collective, for all your support and hard work in building this issue and bringing this dream of mine to life. It’s been a joy and honour working on “Around the Table,” my very first issue at Room magazine.

—Michelle Ha